The most challenging part of a wedding day for any professional wedding photographer is when everyone hits the dance floor. The combination of it being very dark and the strobing of disco lights can make it difficult to measure the light and create good, well exposed images. The lighting is constantly changing, colours are flashing in and out, and what looks fine to the eye can be wildly misleading to a camera sensor.

A further challenge is to make sure that photographs of people dancing aren’t unflattering. Even if they’re great dancers, if you capture their motion at the wrong split second they just look like they’re having some awful convulsion. Arms are flailing, faces contort, eyes close. One frame earlier or later and the whole image falls apart.

How I overcome these problems is by changing my camera meter settings to manual, so that regardless of the strobing lights I’m creating a consistent exposure every time. I’ll usually set a baseline exposure that works for the ambient light, then add flash to lift the scene just enough without killing the atmosphere. That way the room still feels dark, energetic, and alive, rather than flat and over-lit.

I also get close to the action, right in the middle of the dance floor. Shooting from the edges rarely works. Being in amongst it gives the images energy and puts the viewer right there with the couple and their guests. I’ll often use a wider lens so I can work close but still show what’s happening around them.

I then switch to burst mode. I’m not normally someone who shoots a lot of exposures. I tend to think that a good, experienced professional wedding photographer should shoot less and think more about the image they want, then wait for the right moment. But during the dancing frenzy, I change my strategy. I shoot hundreds of images in the space of an hour to make sure I can capture the right moments, like this shot, where timing, light, and movement all briefly line up.